"
"So you can't get your divorce?"
"Are you glad?"
"I don't know."
"What do you mean? You must be either glad or sorry."
"I said what I mean. I am not given to telling lies." Esther set the large
tin candlestick, on which a wick was spluttering, on the kitchen table,
and William looked at her inquiringly. She was always a bit of a mystery
to him. And then he told her, speaking very quickly, how he had neglected
to secure proofs of his wife's infidelity at the time; and as she had
lived a circumspect although a guilty life ever since, the solicitor
thought that it would be difficult to establish a case against her.
"Perhaps she never was guilty," said Esther, unable to resist the
temptation to irritate.
"Not guilty! what do you mean? Haven't I told you how I found them the day
I came up from Ascot?... And didn't she own up to it? What more proof do
you want?"
"Anyway, it appears you haven't enough; what are you going to do? Wait
until you catch her out?"
"There is nothing else to do, unless----" William paused, and his eyes
wandered from Esther's.
"Unless what?"
"Well, you see my solicitors have been in communication with her
solicitors, and her solicitors say that if it were the other way round,
that if I gave her reason to go against me for a divorce, she would be
glad of the chance.
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